


The Song of Summer

by Terrantalen



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Minor Angst, One True Pairing, Pre-Quest, The Shire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 15:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16519166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terrantalen/pseuds/Terrantalen
Summary: Pippin wants something and can't understand why Merry won't give it to him.





	1. Sixteen

The sun set slowly, its golden rays gilding the edges of the clouds with orange, then pink, then purple. Night gathered her cloak tighter around the green shoulders of the Shire's hills and valleys. Crickets woke from their daytime slumber and whirred in the deep grass while lightning bugs began their crepuscular dance in between the long, swaying blades. The summer air stirred gently, the breeze welcome in the gloaming.

Pippin took a sip of his stolen beer and wandered a little farther out into the fields. He'd seen Merry disappear toward the trees some twenty minutes ago. He assumed that he had needed to use the facilities, but then he'd not returned, and Pippin wondered what had become of him. It didn't occur to him to think that some ill had befallen his cousin, merely that perhaps the older hobbit had taken a reprieve to smoke some pipe weed, in which case, Pippin was sure that he would probably like to share it with him. Though, Merry did say that he was still young to be smoking much.

He made his way through the darkened boughs of the wood, the last few rays of daylight gently illuminating the way for him. He picked his way quietly along the little path that led toward an unnamed tributary of the Brandywine, where Merry was most fond of relaxing, keeping his ears open for any sound that might indicate his cousin might be nearby. As he walked, he heard a low noise in front of him, the deep satisfaction in the sound a sure indication to Pippin that Merry had indeed acquired some pipe weed, perhaps even Longbottom Leaf, and he hastened his pace.

As he neared the clearing, it became apparent that Merry was not alone. Someone else moaned and whispered Merry's name and Pippin froze. He crept slowly closer, peering through the underbrush. He caught a flash of motion and watched. Everard Took tilted his head back as someone else placed hungry kisses around his neck. Everard's mouth sought the other hobbit's and captured him in a kiss.

Pippin felt a hot flush creep down the back of his neck as he realized that the other hobbit had to be Merry. He wore Merry's weskit, and shirt, and trousers, plus his hair was the right color, and Pippin would have known the voice of his cousin nearly anywhere, and though Merry was clearly trying to be quiet, he wasn't being nearly quiet enough.

In shock, Pippin took several steps backward and stumbled over an exposed root. He cried out as he fell onto his backside.

"Pippin?" Merry called.

A tingle of panic raced across Pippin's skin. He knew that Merry would find him in a moment anyway, so he decided the best course of action was merely to answer him.

Merry emerged from the clearing, "Are you alright?" he offered Pippin his hand and helped him up, "What are you doing out here?"

"Oh, I was looking for you," Pippin said. He realized that he'd spilled his stolen beer all over himself; his shirtfront was soaked. He brushed himself off and then looked up at Merry, "I um... thought maybe you might be smoking?"

“Be more careful, next time,” Merry chided as Everard emerged from the shadows, nonchalantly packing a pipe.

“Just so happens, young cousin, that we are,” he kindled the dry weed and took two long draws off the pipe. The leaf glowed orange in the dark and Pippin could just barely see the silvery wisps of smoke spiral up into the air. The sharp scent perfumed the clearing. Everard twitched an eyebrow at Pippin and offered him the pipe. He looked completely unfussed and unconcerned. If Pippin had not seen it with his own eyes, he would not have believed that Everard and Merry had been… Pippin swallowed. Pippin took the pipe from Everard’s outstretched hand and followed them deeper into the glade.

As they smoked, they chatted, and Pippin watched the pair of them for any signs of particular regard. He remembered what it was like when Pearl had been courting her fiancé and wondered if he might detect any of the same symptoms in Merry and Everard as he'd done then but could observe none. In fact, Merry seemed much more inclined to talk to Pippin than he was Everard, the pair of them behaved as though they were little better than acquaintances.

When they'd finished smoking, the three of them walked back toward the party field together. Merry took Pippin’s empty mug from him and handed it to Everard and asked him to return it. He then bade him goodnight with a little wave and took the turning for Brandy Hall. Pippin followed him.

"Are you alright, Pip?" he asked, once Everard had gone, "You seem quiet."

"Oh, fine," Pippin said, "Just... I wasted all that beer, spilling on myself."

Merry laughed, "Well, you should have left it behind. Especially since you're not really supposed to have beer to begin with. Or pipe weed for that matter."

"Well, you're a bad influence," Pippin joked, "A corrupter of the youthfully innocent."

Merry cuffed him on the shoulder, "You're just lucky we're in Buckland. We can sneak in the Hall and get you upstairs without anyone being the wiser. C'mon."

 

 

The next day, Merry had a scheme in mind where the two of them were to make a little raid on a nearby farmstead for some strawberries. Pippin was glad of it; Merry was prone to talk nonsense every autumn about the previous summer being the last one that he would consent to thieving, always claiming that he'd outgrown it, but every June so far had brought the return of strawberries, and with their coming, so went Merry's resolve.

He did like to make the excuse that if only Farmer Maggot would sell him the strawberries he shouldn't have to steal them, but the old man insisted that he was owed money for all the years of stolen ones, and Merry could never bring himself to admit that he had, in fact, stolen them, since he'd never been caught. Between them, Pippin supposed they had probably taken the good farmer for an unholy sum over the years, but then again, he did have so very many strawberries, and the finest of the East Farthing at that, and he lived in a comfortable Smial himself, hardly hurting for coin. It was a conundrum, certainly. So far, one solved with a singular solution.

They followed the same path they’d been on the night before, though the character of the forest was changed in the early light of day. Mist coiled through the trees and swirled out of their way as they walked through it. Birds called cheerily to one another and squirrels rustled in the underbrush and chattered when the two hobbits came too close.

Merry kept a small boat moored near the clearing. He waded into the water up to his calves and guided it closer to the bank. He held it steady for Pippin and then pushed it out toward the center of the stream and hopped in himself. He rowed them upstream and laughed as Pippin told him about his latest run-in with Pervinca.

"She was half-wild. I guess she thought it was her best dress, but I've never thought that Pervinca looked well in yellow anyways; I told her I'd done her a favor in ruining it," Pippin concluded. He watched Merry row for a moment.

The older hobbit had forgone a weskit that day and was dressed only in a shirt and suspenders. The day was already warm and Merry had undone the buttons nearest his throat. He'd rolled up his sleeves and the muscles of his forearms coiled and uncoiled hypnotically as he rowed. Pippin cleared his throat, "Merry, last night," he began and then stopped. He looked at Merry's face, it was slightly flushed from exertion, but otherwise he seemed himself.

A long moment passed. Merry raised an eyebrow at him, "Yes?"

"Well," Pippin continued haltingly, "I saw you."

Merry was looking at him like he was daft. “I know,” Merry said, “We spent above half the night together.”

"No, I mean, I saw you and um... Everard. When you were, that is," he paused again and ran a hand nervously through his hair, "You were..." he trailed off once more. Merry's expression was beginning to take on an air of alarm and he'd stopped rowing, "I mean," Pippin continued, "I'm not upset, that is, I mean, it hardly matters to me if you want to... do that with, um, Everard," Pippin shrugged, "I mean, he is a bit pinchy in the face if you ask me and a little thin, but I can see how you might fancy him. Taken at certain angles, he is rather good-looking."

Merry's jaw hung open, "Pippin! Would you please shut up?" he cast his eyes nervously about them.

"Oh, well, I don't mean to insult him, Merry. I mean, Pearl went all over queer when I told her that I thought Hotho was too fat, especially since he's barely more than 35, so I know that I shouldn't-"

Merry dropped an oar and clapped a hand over Pippin's mouth. "Hush, Pippin."

Pippin nodded and Merry removed his hand. Pippin tapped his fingers against his thigh and fidgeted. Merry looked off into the water. A frog leapt from the bank and splashed down among the reeds. "Pippin, what you saw last night isn't something that you should have seen," Merry began quietly, "It's not," he looked up at Pippin, "It's not acceptable, Pip. Understand?"

"Oh," Pippin answered. He knew, of course, that what Merry was saying was true. He was sixteen years old and therefore not completely ignorant of the world. Yet, it hadn't seemed strange to Pippin, what Merry was doing. It had seemed far more appealing to him than when he'd seen Folco Boffin snogging Emilia Hardbottle after Merry's last birthday. "Merry, I wouldn't say anything, you needn't worry. I mean, that's not why I brought it up."

The river was slowly bearing them back the way they had come, the morning sun growing stronger, dissipating the mist that had encircled them as they'd entered the boat. Merry took up the oars again and stroked against the current, keeping them in place. He sighed heavily, "Well, why then, did you mention it?"

"Well, I mean, do you particularly fancy Everard?"

Merry's flush deepened, "I can't talk about this," he directed his eyes as the sky.

Pippin leaned forward and knelt in the bottom of the boat, closer to Merry. He placed a hand on Merry's knee. Merry stared like a wasp had landed on his leg. He released the oar again and gripped Pippin's wrist. Gently, he removed Pippin's hand from his leg. Pippin looked down and sat back, "Sorry. I just thought maybe..."

Merry was struggling for breath, and for a panicked moment, Pippin thought he'd begun to cry, but he soon realized that his cousin was laughing. He was holding himself around the sides, his shoulders shaking. "Are you," he gasped for air, "telling me... Oh, Pippin, you're sixteen years old!"

"It's not funny!" Pippin said, though Merry’s breathless amusement dragged a responding spark of gaiety from him just the same, "And what does my being sixteen have to do with anything?"

Merry wiped his eyes, "I'm eight years older than you, idiot. I can't very well..."

"Why not?" Pippin asked with a petulance that embarrassed him. It was hardly mature sounding, after all.

Merry's confident smile was back in place. He ruffled Pippin's hair, "Just forget it, Pip. You're too young."

"I just want a kiss, Merry."

"Kiss someone your own age then," Pippin began to protest, but Merry dismissed him with a wave of his hand, "Look, forget it, Pip. You're like my little brother; I'd no sooner kiss you than you'd kiss Pervinca."

Pippin made a face but said nothing more.

 

 

The character of the wildflowers changed as the summer spent its long days and darkness descended almost imperceptibly earlier. Coneflowers and phlox came and then slowly went, clinging on while black-eyed susan came to the fore. Branches of pear trees drooped toward the ground, laden with sweet, juicy fruit, and the first of the early apples began to come in. Autumn wasn’t quite yet in the air, but it was certainly coming. The nights had begun to cool and the cicadas had stopped their ever-present whirring. Pippin had only just seen one of the particularly large, fat spiders that only ever seemed to appear when corn was just nearly done for the year. The change in season meant that he wouldn’t see the rivers and woods of Buckland again for another year and the thought was making him somewhat miserable.

“Cheer up, Pip,” Merry said to him as he helped him carry his trunk out to wait for the cart, “It’ll all still be here next time you get back.”

“I know,” Pippin said, but he still sighed. They set Pippin’s trunk down on the stoop at the side of the house. The pony cart wasn’t there yet, and Pippin could only hope that some ill had befallen it. Maybe a broken wheel, or something. Not, obviously, in any place where the driver would be in danger. Maybe in Hobbiton, where a repair would be easily gotten, but still cause a delay.

As they waited, Merry took two apples from his pocket and offered one to Pippin. Pippin took it and sat down atop his trunk. Merry leaned against the wall and took a bite from his apple, apparently as unconcerned at their parting as he would be if it were for no more than a single evening. Pippin merely put the apple Merry had given him down next to him and stared off along the road.

Merry laughed, “Come, now, it’s not like you to be so downcast. What’s wrong?”

Pippin shrugged, “It’s nothing.”

Marry raised an eyebrow at him and smirked, “Clearly it’s not nothing. That apple shouldn’t have survived thirty seconds past my giving it to you, and yet, there it is, unmarked, just begging me to take it back.”

“Maybe I’m not hungry,” Pippin said, feeling himself flush as Merry snickered.

“Sure, you’re not hungry and the sky isn’t blue and water is no longer wet,” Merry teased. Pippin looked away from his cousin’s smiling face. Merry picked up the apple and sat next to Pippin on the trunk, “Pip,” he said softly, and Pippin looked up.

Merry’s hazel eyes were thoughtful and Pippin felt himself tear up, “I’m just going to miss you,” he said, feeling stupid as Merry’s face crumpled in a mix of amusement and sympathy.

“Oh, Pip,” he said and gathered Pippin in a hug, “You dolt, it’s only four months and you’ll see me again. It isn’t a lifetime.” He patted Pippin’s back and pulled away just slightly, so he could look at him again, “I’ll miss you too, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Pippin said softly. Pippin became aware that Merry was still holding him, that they were sitting very close to one another and that they were, still, quite alone. He looked up his lashes at Merry in an imitation of the way he’d seen some of the girls look at their beau at the end of Highday feasts, when they were hoping for a parting kiss.

Merry snorted, “Oh ho, nice try, but the answer is still no.”

“But Merry,” Pippin began but Merry shook his head.

“No, Pip. Look, I…” Merry stopped, possibly noticing Pippin’s renewed misery. He looked skyward again and then sighed, “Look, I’ve been where you are now. You probably think that you’re… that is, sometimes, people get crushes on other people, and maybe they feel really intense, but it’s only a crush. I had a crush on someone older when I was your age but,” Merry swallowed, “he very politely told me it wasn’t going to happen, and I moved on. Just find someone your own age and you’ll get it out of your system.”

Pippin was aghast, “But Merry, who would turn you down?”

Color flooded Merry’s cheeks, “Is that what you took away just now? Honestly, Pip…”

The clatter of cart wheels coming up the lane sounded and Merry looked in its direction, seemingly pleased for the reprieve. They stood up and waited for the driver as he brought the cart around and then, together, lifted Pippin’s trunk into the back. The driver hopped up into the cart and Pippin went to sit next to him, but he felt Merry’s hand on his shoulder.

The older hobbit smiled at him, and Pippin saw that it was not with the full amount of joy Merry usually carried in that expression. He pressed the apple into Pippin’s hand and said, “For the road,” before he turned on his heel and went into the house.


	2. Seventeen

It had rained only the day before, so the little brook was quite full of cold, fresh water as Pippin hopped from rock to rock across it. Water crept up the rocks and licked his toes as he crossed, the day not yet quite warm enough to make the sensation altogether pleasant. It was still early yet in the summer and the mornings were holding rather cool. Pippin looked down at the water as he stood on the final rock, watching it flow across the stony stream bed below, the motion making the pebbles look like they were wriggling like the scales of a massive trout.

“C’mon, Pippin,” Merry called from ahead of him and Pippin snapped out of his reverie. He leapt one last time and landed on the bank with a thump. Merry shook his head at him, “You’re louder than a flock of chattering birds, you know that?”

“Well, I can’t see that stealth really matters. We’re just taking a walk, aren’t we?”

“Yes, but to a secret location,” Merry emphasized with a teasing smirk, “Everyone in the Shire will find out about this place if you keep making such a racket.”

“There’s no one here in any case, Merry.”

Merry shushed him again with amusement in his eyes as they continued on. They walked deeper into the woods, Merry leading them toward their destination. He had told Pippin about the old stone shed as soon as he’d returned to Brandy Hall and they’d decided to make an exhibition to it as soon as possible, being as that it was exactly the type of place that Pippin would like.

They were both too old, really, for the notion of a secret fort to be that greatly appealing, but Pippin found himself delighted that Merry had thought of him in his absence, and that Merry wanted to share his new discovery with him. Plus, the lightly teasing way that Merry had been behaving toward him all day had put Pippin into a rare mood. He felt giddy at Merry’s attention, sure that it was different than it had been last summer, or even when Merry had come to stay at Yule.

It was not hard to convince himself that it was so as Merry offered him a hand up a particularly steep tumble of rock and pulled him up, still with the same look of mischievous warmth that he’d had earlier. They walked through a particularly close grove of elms and toward a cluster of rocks. Merry stopped, “Alright, we’re close,” he said, looking around the woods, “Look for a rock that’s shaped like a biscuit with a patch lichen on it that looks like a dog’s head.”

Pippin snorted, “Merry, all of these rocks look like biscuits. What sort of daft direction is that?”

“Maybe if you’ve never seen a proper biscuit before,” Merry said, looking archly at a rock that would, admittedly, have been a very poor specimen of a biscuit indeed, “You’ll know it when you see it. This one really looks like a biscuit. And it’s the only one with the lichen.”

Pippin poked around the underbrush, looking for the absurd rock that, apparently, was unmistakably biscuitish. He fully expected Merry to find the rock first, so, his search was desultory at best. He looked up at the green, swaying leaves, admiring the shifting shades of green as sunlight hit them and then danced aside, illuminating them from the deep green of wet grass to a chartreuse so bright, it was nearly yellow. He watched the flight of a bird as it cut across his vision until it disappeared through the trees with a trilling call that sounded like laughter. He was only just beginning to wonder what would be for lunch when they got home when, suddenly, he quite understood what Merry meant. There was a rock that looked very much like one of their Nan’s biscuits. Pippin jogged over to it and, just as Merry had said, saw the lichen that looked a little like a dog’s head. Pippin called him over and Merry confirmed that it was the rock they were looking for.

“Now, we need to go…” he glanced around at the woods, and back down at the rock before pointing to their left, “Just about that way, I think.”

They walked on through the woods, passing little hillocks upon which old trees grew. The older trees, however, were frequently flanked by younger ones, giving the forest an uneven and unbalanced look as they traveled. Merry stopped quite suddenly and Pippin almost collided with him, but Merry had a hand out and stopped him just in time.

“There,” Merry said, pointing to a hill that was slightly more prominent than the rest.

The hill rose up from the forest floor and had a stair of stone steps cut into its side. From their vantage point, Pippin could just barely make out a rocky edifice at the top of the steps. There was a perimeter wall on one side of the hill that might once have marked off a small patch of lawn, but wild blueberries had long since taken over the free space; they bloomed there in a tangled cluster.

Merry led him closer, and Pippin stopped to study the old steps before he mounted them. Time had worn down their corners so that they were rounded gently. Thick, green moss sprouted from the cracks where the stones joined one another, and little brown, almost hair-like protrusions grew out of it; an entire miniature world was directly at their feet. He smiled at Merry as the older hobbit chided him for lollygagging. He pushed past Pippin and Pippin followed him the rest of the way up the stairs.

The front of the structure was set into the hill. Any doors or windows the old building might have ever had were long gone, and now only open gaps remained where wood and glass might once have been. The top of the shack was covered with a thick cluster of thorny wild roses that had yet to bloom. In the height of summer, Pippin felt that the place must be something spectacular.

“Who built it, you think?” Pippin asked as he ducked through the doorway, which was low, even by hobbit standards. The interior was only one room and it appeared that there was no hearth. “A strange place for a shed, surely,” he added.

“It is strange,” Merry said. Pippin looked back at his cousin, who still stood outside, “I remember my grandfather telling me stories of an old settlement that had been in the woods once, but surely there’d be more evidence of it than this.”

Pippin’s eyes went wide, “Maybe it was a smuggler’s den!”

Merry laughed, “Smugglers? In the Shire? What would they smuggle?”

Pippin giggled, “Well, anything, really. Maybe pipe weed, or brandy, or…”

“Carrots?” Merry interposed, “How about apples, or maybe mushrooms?”

“Exciting things can happen in the Shire, Merry,” Pippin said with a huff. “Anyway, I could see wanting to smuggle really good mushrooms.”

“Only you’d smuggle them directly to your mouth. You do know that smugglers are typically trying to sell things to make money?”

“So?” Pippin said, “You can make money off any of those things. Though, I’ll have you remember that I was the one who suggested the practical items and you were the one who suggested the nonsense,” Pippin shook his head as though in disappointment, “Always a joke with you, Merry.”

Merry smirked, “Nearly always. Anyway, take a look at this,” he said and took Pippin around the side of the building to where there was a little cistern that someone had taken the trouble to carve with intricately wrought vines. “Still think it’s smugglers?”

“Smugglers, I’m sure, like pretty things as much as anyone,” Pippin replied defensively. He knelt down and traced the vines with his fingertips. Time had weathered away much of the detail, but it was clear that it had once been very beautifully done. He looked back up at Merry, “This is where they would have watered their smuggling ponies.”

“You think ponies would consent to be complicit in a scheme to smuggle away the Shire’s valuable mushrooms?”

“Yes,” Pippin said, “That’s why the smugglers made them such a pretty place to drink from. Otherwise, the ponies would have gone straight to the law.”

“Right to the Mayor of Michel Delving himself, with hoof-marked receipts as evidence.”

Pippin snorted, “Obviously.”

Merry crouched down next to him, closely examining the cistern himself, “I don’t know, I still don’t believe that a proper Shire pony could be bribed so easily.”

Pippin rolled his eyes, “Well, these were Bree ponies, Merry. They’re very materialistic.”

“Those horrible, selfish Bree ponies,” Merry said darkly, “How could I have forgotten?”

Pippin smiled at his cousin, pleased only at being with him. He kept looking at him until Merry looked back.

“What?” Merry asked.

Pippin only smiled more deeply, “Nothing.”

“You can’t smile at me like that and tell me it’s nothing, Pip.”

“Only, just, I was wondering what might have prompted you to go so far to get me all alone,” Pippin said sweetly.

Merry rolled his eyes, “Heavens, still, then?”

“Still what?”

Merry canted his head like a curious dog, sending his honey curls tumbling. A slight smile played at his lips as he looked at Pippin with a measured, almost lazy amusement in his eyes. He reached toward Pippin slowly and plucked a leaf from his hair. “You’re still a mess,” he said, twirling the leaf between his fingers in a way that suggested that Merry didn’t entirely mind if Pippin was a mess. He stood up, “It’s nearly lunch time, Pip. We should probably head back if we aren’t going to miss it.”

“Alright,” Pippin said. As Merry walked away from him, a ray of sunlight caught his hair and turned it a fiery gold. 

 

 

Merry led Estella Bolger through a reel, the pair of them laughing as they spun. He put his hands on her waist and lifted her into the air and Estella gazed down into Merry's eyes like she would rather be nowhere else in the world. The song came to a stop and Estella curtseyed at Merry and he bowed back before he took her hand and led her from the dance floor. Estella tugged at one of her curls with a laugh and leaned fondly against Merry’s shoulder as he chatted with her. She hugged him and walked off toward a group of giggling girls. Merry bowed roguishly in their direction and the tittering girls erupted in a gale of delighted laughter. He sat down next to Pippin, smiling. Pippin looked from Merry to the girls with a small amount of confusion but said nothing. He handed Merry a mug of ale that Merry took from him gratefully.

"Thanks," Merry said, taking a sip. It was a warm night and Merry was sweating a little in the heat. It didn't have the effect of lessening him, however, somehow, Merry's skin only seemed to glow in the candlelight for the slight sheen of his sweat upon his brow. Pippin had to look away from him before he might be accused of staring.

Merry was looking at the girls again in any case, smiling at a shy cousin of Estella's who was visiting for the summer. The girl looked at him and then quickly away, her cheeks flushed as another of the girls whispered something to her. "I should ask her to dance," he said.

"I don't think so, old man," said Folco Boffin, who sat on the other side of Merry, "I'm claiming her for the next two, if she'll have me."

Merry rolled his eyes, "Well, just mind your manners, alright? Estella says she's only just twenty, so not ready for a mountebank of your stripe."

Folco laughed and jostled Merry's shoulder, "I'd never," he looked at Pippin and winked before making his way toward the group of girls. Merry shook his head after him.

"Git," Pippin said and Merry laughed.

"Fancy some ale, Pip?" Merry asked and Pippin nodded vigorously. Pippin was an old hand by now at snatching full looking cups left to sit too long, but it was more pleasant to have Merry fetch him fresh ones.

Pippin watched Merry weave through the crowd to the taps, stopping as he went to chat quickly with Estella again who then looked toward Folco and her cousin with a raised eyebrow. He struggled past a collection of grey-haired old hobbits who were smoking and playing cards at an overturned barrel, and then procured two mugs of ale and made his way back to Pippin.

Now that he was seventeen, it was easier for Merry to sneak him drinks than it ever had been previously. Few hobbits looked askance at a boy his age with a mug than they might have when he was fifteen or sixteen, and so they no longer had to sneak off to the periphery of the party as they’d once had to do. Still, Merry led Pippin to a quieter table just the same, where the pair of them sat alone except for the occasional interloper who came to say hello.

The night progressed with Pippin becoming increasingly tipsy, but he avoided complete drunkenness. Still, by the time everyone had begun to disburse, he was feeling light as air, though that might just have been the fact that Merry had given up looking after the girls and had kept Pippin company in between sneaking him drinks.

"Well, what do you say?" Merry asked as they watched Folco walk off into the darkness with a girl who was not Estella's cousin, "Call it a night, then?"

"Sure," Pippin agreed, pleased that he wasn't slurring his words in the slightest. He was still grateful, however, when Merry helped him up from the bench. He laughed as Pippin wobbled a little unsteadily and grasped him by the shoulders.

"Goodness, I didn't think you were so far gone."

"I'm not," Pippin insisted, "Just, maybe we could take a walk before we go home?"

"Probably wise," Merry agreed. They both knew that Merry's parents were intelligent enough to know that Merry had been sneaking Pippin drinks for the past couple of years, but there was also a tacit and unspoken agreement that Merry would not allow Pippin to get overly drunk. If Esme caught him looking so tipsy, Merry might be in actual trouble for a change.

The pair of them walked along the road going generally in the direction of Brandy Hall, but Merry turned off, leading Pippin down another track through the woods. Pippin heard the soft hoot of an owl and a gentle rustling of leaves overhead. The crickets were almost stunningly loud the further they walked, and Pippin realized that he wasn't sure where they were going until Merry took another turn and then he suddenly recognized the way. They came into a clearing surrounded by protective trees. There was a circle of stones in the center that contained the ashy remains of old fires, and several large logs arrayed around it that acted as benches. A little stack of wood and some flint were piled to the side of the clearing and Merry used them to build a fire while Pippin stared up dreamily at the stars.

When Merry had finally gotten the fire going, he sat down next to Pippin. Pippin watched the dance of the flames and listened to the pop of the wood as it burned. He thought again about Merry dancing with Estella, the way she'd looked at him and the way he'd looked back at her.

“Merry, do you like girls?” he asked, his tipsiness making him a little more forward than he might have been normally.

Merry seemed to consider this before he replied, “I like girls. They’re fine people, overall.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Pippin said. He sighed, “I mean, I haven’t forgotten… you know… about you and Everard…”

“I didn’t expect you had." Merry shifted forward on the log and leaned his elbows on his knees, cupping his face in his hands. He watched the fire very intently.

“Well, I want to talk about it.”

“About what, exactly?”

“About…” Pippin waved his hand nebulously, “well, girls. I suppose.”

Merry looked back at him over his shoulder, his profile illuminated in a glowing line, “Realized that you fancy girls, then?”

“What? No!” Pippin said, in shock, realizing how far that was from the case. Merry only watched him with the same sober expression. Pippin shook his head and shrugged, “I don’t. I should though, shouldn’t I?" he asked. Merry said nothing. Pippin sighed, "When did you start to fancy girls?”

There was a pause for a moment and then Merry started to laugh, “Pippin,” he said when he’d regained enough breath to speak, “I don’t fancy girls.”

“At all?” Pippin asked.

“At all,” Merry confirmed.

“Oh,” Pippin said, “It’s just when you were dancing…?” Pippin trailed off, struggling to articulate exactly what he wanted to say.

“Yes?” Merry asked.

“You looked like you were having so much fun.”

“I was having fun. Like I have fun whenever I spend time with friends.”

“But you…” Pippin felt himself flush, “flirted with Estella. And the other girls, too.”

Merry shrugged, “Maybe, yes, a little.”

“But if you don’t fancy girls, why would you flirt? I don’t understand.”

Merry’s eyes swelled in annoyance, “Well, I can hardly flirt with boys at a party, now can I? I don’t know, it’s just a bit of fun. I tease them, they tease me, none of it means anything.”

“Oh, I see,” Pippin said, though he did not quite see.

Merry sighed, “It’s like you said, Pip. I’m supposed to flirt with girls, I’m supposed to want to,” Merry shook his head, “do things with girls.”

“What sort of things?”

“Now you’re acting stupid on purpose and I won’t fall for it.”

Pippin laughed, “Alright, but still, have you ever kissed a girl?”

Merry winced, “Yes. And no, I didn’t like it. It wasn’t that it was terrible. Actually, she was probably better at kissing than the first boy I kissed, but it just wasn’t… isn't what I want.”

Pippin considered this. “Why?”

Merry threw his hands up, “I don’t know. I just don’t. Why are you asking me all this, anyway?”

“Because… I don’t know. I’m curious.” Merry continued to look at him patiently. Pippin thought about the way Merry had looked at him in the woods and wondered if it were at all different than the way he’d acted at the party. Was he just pretending? “Well, I just…” he shook his head to clear it a little, “I don’t know. I thought maybe it was something that didn’t last or maybe you only really fancy Everard for some reason,” he toed the grass with his foot, “And then there was what you said about crushes last year and I thought maybe that meant that you thought that, you know, it wouldn’t… that I don’t…”

“You mean, you think I meant to tell you you’d grow out of it? Fancying boys?” Pippin shrugged and Merry gave a quick eyeroll, “Well, that’s not what I meant, though I’ve heard people say things like that before. I don’t know, maybe for some people, they do grow out of it or something, but I haven’t, and I can’t say that I expect to.”

“So, you fancy more than just Everard, then?” Pippin asked after a moment.

“Yes, obviously,” Merry said, shaking his head, “He’s just… we’re just having fun. I’m not in love with him or anything.”

Something like a weight lifted from Pippin’s shoulders, “But if you were to be in love, it would be with a lad and not a girl?”

Merry looked up at the stars, “I suppose so, yes.”

They sat together in silence a while more. The fire gradually burnt itself out and only embers remained. Patches of glowing orange chased one another across the smoking logs and cast a warm half-light around the fire pit. Were it not for the light of the full moon overhead, it would have been too dark to see.

Pippin looked around them. The glade was quiet, empty and dark. They might be the only two hobbits for a mile. “Merry?”

“Yes, Pip?”

“What’s it like? Kissing?”

Merry gave him a long look. Pippin was sure that he wasn’t imagining that Merry was breathing just slightly faster. “You really need to give this up, Pip,” he said eventually.

“What?”

“I’m not going to kiss you.”

Pippin tilted his head and tried to look winsome, “I just asked what it was like, Merry. I didn’t say I wanted you to show me.”

“So, you don’t want to kiss me, then?” Merry asked sliding just slightly closer to Pippin, so that Pippin had to look up a bit into his eyes.

“No,” Pippin whispered, feeling his heart pounding like he’d run a mile. Merry was so close, closer than he’d been all summer. He leaned closer to Pippin and closer still. His hazel eyes were brilliantly blue in the moonlight and Pippin felt himself go quickly lightheaded as Merry leaned over him to whisper in his ear.

“Good.”

Pippin shoved him with both hands and Merry tumbled backward off the log, landing unceremoniously on his rear in the dirt. “Oh, you’re vile, Merry!” Pippin scolded, “You… you…” he sputtered incoherently.

“What?" Merry asked, propping himself up on his elbows, "I just did what you asked and didn’t kiss you. I’m hardly going to kiss you if you don’t want it.”

Pippin stood up from the log and paced back and forth in front of it, feeling completely sober, “Well, then,” he said, irritably, “I do want you to, alright? I want you to kiss me and I want to kiss you and I don’t see why you have to tease me like… like… Oh, stop laughing at me!”

“I’m sorry,” Merry said between fits of giggles, “You’re just so angry. You’re like a cat that’s gotten a bucket of water dumped over it.”

Pippin snorted but maintained his stern countenance, “Shut up, Meriadoc.”

“My full name, now? Really? Well. In that case,” Merry stood and dusted himself off, “I’m sorry, truly, Peregrin. But I still won’t kiss you,” Merry raised a hand, “You were and you remain too young. I stand by my earlier advice, find someone else to kiss.”

Pippin had been as much play acting as actually angry previously, but suddenly he felt himself go into a real temper, “Fine. But then don’t flirt with me like I’m one of your meaningless girls!”

The joy in Merry’s eyes extinguished and he looked properly ashamed of himself. He ran a hand through his hair with a wince, “I’m sorry, Pip. I shouldn’t have done… what I did. Forgive me?”

“Maybe later,” Pippin huffed, folding his arms across his chest.

Merry looked down at his feet, “If I happened to have some Longbottom Leaf on me, do you suppose that would help?”

“It might,” Pippin replied, “Do you or are you just teasing again?” he asked, unable to let go of his anger so quickly.

To his credit, Merry continued to look ashamed, “I do. Here,” he took out a little pouch from his pocket and handed it to Pippin, “It’s yours now, you don’t have to share if you don’t like.”

Merry looked so contrite and hangdog as he continued to look away from Pippin that Pippin felt his anger dissolve like sugar in a cup of tea. “Oh, very well, Merry. I forgive you. I’m sorry that I was so upset.”

“No, you were right to be upset with me,” Merry said, finally looking Pippin in the eyes once more. “I acted like an ass and I’m sorry.”

“Alright,” he said, as he tucked away the Longbottom Leaf. Pippin felt strangely remorseful for the change he had affected in Merry, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. In the end, he told Merry that he felt equal to the task of walking home and since their fire was out in any case, they left the little clearing behind them and walked back to Brandy Hall in more or less companionable silence.

They snuck around to the back entrance through the kitchen and quietly crept up the stairs together, fearful of waking Merry's parents, but Esme and Saradoc at least feigned sleep as the cousins made their way to their rooms. Pippin bade Merry goodnight and Merry hesitated before answering in kind.

He walked several steps further down the hall toward his room before he stopped and turned. He wore an expression of indecision, but he met Pippin’s eye and said, “If it’s any consolation, it gets harder to say no, every time.”

“Merry,” Pippin said warningly, but Merry only looked at him.

"Goodnight," he said again and walked to his room.

 

 

Shadows crept and receded across the spines of hundreds of books as they sat in the great library of Brandy Hall. There was a similar library in the Great Smials, but Pippin could scarcely ever be found in it, unless Merry were with him. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy reading, for he certainly did, but he hated doing something out of obligation, and his father often made reading feel like a chore rather than a pleasure. In Buckland, Merry often read to Pippin or directed him toward books he thought he’d enjoy, and therefore the library was not a solemn dungeon that trapped his mind in pages of boring writs and figures, but rather an avenue of escape to other realities.

After dinner, it was common for the whole family to retire to the library and pass a quiet hour or two together. Uncle Saradoc, as always, took his chair near the fire and propped his feet up with the evening paper. Aunt Esme sat across from him and picked up the novel she’d been working through. Merry settled himself on the couch with a very old-looking volume that Pippin strongly suspected was on linguistics. Pippin sat near him with his feet tucked under his knees. He grabbed whatever was to hand on the side table and riffled through it disinterestedly. Unable to keep up the pretense of reading for long, Pippin instead stared up at the corner of the shelves and the ceiling, watching as the candlelight began to struggle with keeping the shadows at bay in the darkening room.

The summer had flown away from him like a swallow swooping low across the surface of a pond. It seemed only yesterday that he had been picking his way through the forest with Merry, and now it was only a matter of hours before he’d be returning home with yet another summer past him. He wanted to savor the last few hours he’d have of Merry’s company until the winter, but he bore it with a new pain. While it had seemed at one point that perhaps Merry might want there to be more between them, now it seemed as though nothing could be further from the case. Whatever spark Pippin had felt or had imagined had been snuffed as though it had been submerged in water.

And, he felt he’d been the one to do it. He recalled the rebuke he’d delivered to Merry and, while he felt his words had been just, he also felt that he would rather have discovered that Merry had not been flirting with him idly. Surely, Pippin thought, if it had been more, Merry would have renewed his attention to him by now.

He’d been hopeful, initially, after what Merry had said in the hallway, but the day after that night saw the end of the gentle, sly teasing that Merry had been wont to favor him with before. Now, whenever he looked at him, Pippin saw nothing but smiles with no meaning in them beyond amusement and no fondness beyond friendship.

Eventually, Aunt Esme snapped her book shut. She looked at Uncle Saradoc with a fond smile before she shook his shoulder in an attempt to wake him that was, as typical, fruitless. “Make sure he doesn’t sleep that way all night,” she said as she put her book away, “or he’ll wake with a dreadful crick in his neck and you know your father is a sore trial when he’s in pain.”

Merry dutifully agreed and accepted the kiss his mother placed atop his head before she ambled from the room. He looked over at Pippin, “Well, what do you say? Father’s asleep and mother’s gone to bed, how about a game?”

Pippin shifted the neglected book out of his lap and nodded his agreement.

“Riddles?” Merry asked and Pippin made a face to which Merry said, “Oh, come on. We’ve played cards every night this week, let’s do riddles for once.”

The glowing candlelight danced in Merry’s eyes as he looked at him imploringly. Pippin felt, not for the first time, that he must be somewhat of a burden to his clever cousin. It could hardly be fun, he supposed, to be weighed down by someone so thoroughly unintellectual as Pippin was, when Merry himself was so perspicacious. He supposed that it was hardly surprising that Merry did not, and, very probably, would not entertain feelings for him beyond friendship, “Alright, but you know that this will go poorly, don’t you?”

Merry smiled, “Yes, I’m aware. You want to ask or answer first?”

“I’ll ask.”

Merry waited patiently while Pippin attempted to come up with some kind of vaguely rhyming couplet. It was always more difficult to come up with something reasonably intelligent when Pippin knew he had an audience. He felt his brow crinkle.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Merry teased.

Pippin snickered, “Shut up, I’m thinking and you’re being disruptive.”

He thought for a little bit more before he made a start, “It dances across paper like um… a feather… no,” Pippin shook his head, “Never mind that,” he said, abandoning his riddle mid-stride. He snapped his fingers, “how about this: it’s red and black and can be spotted in the summer?”

Merry snorted, “A ladybug. Pippin, that’s hardly a proper riddle.”

“I told you I’m awful at them.”

“Alright, how about I ask and you guess?”

Pippin sighed, “I suppose, but I don’t know what you think is going to happen.”

“I’ll give you children’s riddles, how’s that?”

Pippin laughed, “Make them riddles for particularly dull children and then maybe I’ll get one.”

Merry grinned at him and Pippin felt his heart flutter. He quickly looked away from him and studied the pattern of the rug while Merry gave him his riddle.

“Stealthy as a shadow in the dead of night, cunning but affectionate if given a bite. Never owned but often loved. At my sport considered cruel, but that's because you never know me at all. What am I?”

The rug was patterned like a tangled thicket of thorns and leaves. Little deer and unicorns peeked from the woven jungle and a narrow line of beige traversed the edges before it coiled in knots at the corners. Pippin traced one of the knots with his eyes for a moment before he sighed, “I don’t know, Merry.”

Merry snorted, “Well, you’ve barely thought about it. Think, Pippin. This one is easy.”

“Maybe for you since you’re clever, but everyone knows that I’ve no more wits than a sack of flour," Pippin said derisively. A moment later he added, "Besides, who cares?”

Merry laughed, “There. That’s the real problem. It’s not that you can’t figure it out, you just don’t want to.”

“Who would? I mean, what point does this have anyway?”

“It’s a game, you ninny. Also, never forget that Bilbo’s life was saved in a game of riddles, wasn’t it?”

“Well, if it’s supposed to be fun, it’s not. And if it’s meant to prepare me for a deadly game of riddles with a mad old cave-dwelling creature from some distant mountains that I’m hardly likely to see in my lifetime, I think we both ought to accept that I’m not meant to survive the encounter. I’d be better off smearing myself with butter and lying down on a cooking platter rather than making the attempt to best someone in a farcical riddle contest.”

Merry smirked, “You never know, the creature might take pity on you and let you go since you’re so pathetic. At least have a guess.”

“What was it again?” Pippin asked and Merry repeated the riddle for him. He tapped his chin and leaned further forward before he turned to Merry. “I don’t know… A cat?”

“Yes!” Merry exclaimed excitedly, “See? You’ve got it!”

“Well, you don’t need to sound like I’ve solved an essential question of the nature of existence, Merry. You said just a moment ago that it was an easy riddle,” Pippin said with amusement.

“Still,” Merry replied with a smile.

Saradoc emitted a particularly loud snore before he settled himself back to sleep.

“Should we wake him?”

Merry shrugged, “He’ll wake up soon enough. Here, how about another riddle.”

Pippin groaned, “No, please, not another. I’ll do anything else. Please, just stop.”

Merry laughed, “Alright, alright,” Merry looked at the fire, which was burning low, “Perhaps we ought to go to bed, anyway. You’ve got to get up early tomorrow to pack, don’t you?”

Pippin made a face, “Oh, fine. One more.”

If nothing else, the riddles were distracting him from the destiny that awaited him the next day.

Merry thought for a moment and then said, “A precious stone, as clear as diamond. Seek it out whilst the sun is near the horizon. Though you can walk on water with its power, try to keep it, and it'll vanish within an hour. What is it?”

Pippin traced the arm of his chair and sat forward. He could feel Merry’s eyes watching him and he wanted to meet his cousin’s gaze, to savor a moment of Merry’s undivided attention, but he couldn’t face the truth that he would see if he did.

Yes, it was true that Pippin’s heart stuttered nearly every time his cousin entered his presence but it didn’t matter. And it was true too, that once Pippin had hoped that Merry might feel or come to feel the same for him, but that hardly mattered. Not when Merry found every possible excuse to slip off with Everard on High Day feasts, not when he avoided being alone with Pippin for more than ten minutes strung together. Pippin had to learn to endure the pain of his almost certainly unrequited affection and hope that it would go away. He suspected that Merry was hoping that their parting would perform the necessary magic and that when they next saw one another, Pippin would be cured of whatever madness they both knew had possessed him.

He looked down at the twisting green foliage of the rug once more, “I don’t know, Merry.”

“You always say you don’t know right before you figure it out. Also, this one is really easy. Berilac got it in ten seconds and he can scarcely walk and maintain a conversation at the same time.”

Pippin snorted at Merry’s description of his less than bright Brandybuck cousin and thought through it again, attempting to keep his mind on the task at hand, rather than allowing it to wander as it would. “Ice?”

“Yes!” Merry said excitedly. He clapped his hands a little, “Well done, Pip.”

Saradoc snorted from his chair and shook himself awake. He stretched and gave his son an irritated look, “What on earth are you yelling for, boy? Goodness, can’t a man have a nap in front of his own fire without being awoken by his ill-mannered progeny?”

Merry smiled at his father’s grumpy rebuke and said only, “Pippin solved a riddle, father.”

Saradoc’s eyebrows shot up toward his hairline, “Did he indeed? Well, alright, then, you may be forgiven. Such an occurrence is rare in the extreme,” he yawned, “It seems very late, are you certain that we should not all be in bed?”

“Undoubtedly,” Merry said, “Mum went to bed long ago.”

Saradoc shook his head, “Your mother is a creature of good sense, far better would be we all to take her example,” he looked at his son and his nephew and then smiled, “But, you are young, and late nights have not the effect of diminishing you to the degree that they do elderly people such as myself. I, at least, am to bed then. Goodnight, Merry. Goodnight, Pippin. Do try to keep it down, will you?”

“Yes, Uncle,” Pippin chimed at the same time that Merry said, “Yes, Father.”

He yawned as he left them and shut the library door behind him. Merry looked at Pippin, “Actually, he’s probably right. We should go to bed too.”

“Can’t I have one more riddle?”

Merry laughed, “But you hate riddles, remember?”

“I’m aware,” Pippin said, “but I’d rather riddles than…” he trailed off, unable to say the first thing that had leapt into his mind. He diverted himself, “well, almost nothing, actually, but still. One more?”

Merry sat back and thought for a moment, his skin glowing gold in the light of the fire. “Now this one is a very easy riddle indeed,” he said, “so don’t pretend to me that you can’t guess it. At night they come without being fetched, and by day they are lost without being stolen, what are they?”

Pippin shook his head, “That’s insultingly easy, you know, Merry.”

“Then answer it,” Merry challenged.

Their eyes met and for a moment there was a ghost, a glimmer of something in Merry’s eyes, something in the way he was looking at him in the soft, warm firelight that made Pippin wonder and then it was gone so quickly, Pippin was sure he was chasing fairy fire again. “Stars,” he said.

“There you are,” Merry said as he stood up and began clearing up the books that he’d taken down during the evening. Pippin rose from his seat and snuffed out the candles until they were left with nothing but the dim glow of the fire. He cast a final look around the library as Merry waited for him in the hall. He made his way up the stairs where his bed, and darkness, and too much time to think waited for him.


	3. Eighteen

Rain pattered against the mullioned windows of Brandy Hall and Pippin looked out at the deeply verdant grass with a pang of longing. Three days of indifferent drizzle had been succeeded by two days of downpour, and now another day of rain besides. He was losing his mind, being kept inside. And it helped nothing that Everard had stayed on an extra week after Merry’s Birthday due to the possibility of “ill roads” as he’d phrased it. Presently, he was plucking lazily at a fiddle in a way that Pippin found highly irritating. Since it seemed that Everard couldn’t be bothered to play a proper song, Pippin wished that he’d just put the instrument away.

Pippin would have liked to say something to that effect to Merry, but Merry was wrapped up with a pair of books, tracing his finger along the pages of one and then referring to something in the other. He knew better than to bother Merry when he was deep in his histories.

His cousin’s honey colored hair fell forward into his eyes and he occasionally reached a hand up to brush it back off his forehead, piling his curls in a messy tangle atop his head. His lips gently formed silent syllables whenever he read something particularly interesting to him. At least, so absorbed as he was, Merry was oblivious to Pippin’s study of him. Pippin smiled fondly.

Unbidden, he thought again about that night the previous year where Merry had nearly kissed him. He played the scene in his mind again and again, imagining it coming out differently. Sometimes, Merry kissed him instead of teasing him the way he had, sometimes Pippin imagined himself pinning his cousin to the ground instead of throwing a hissy fit and kissing him before Merry could stop him. Sometimes, he imagined that everything happened just the way it had, but instead of Pippin allowing Merry to go into his room after basically confessing that he did want to kiss him, that he or Merry or sometimes both of them together closed the distance between them and just kissed instead of the nothing that had happened, the nothing that continued to happen.

Pippin had spent the entire fall season feeling dispirited and low over his feelings for Merry, convinced that his cousin had flirted with him without realizing the depth of Pippin’s tendre for him, and had stopped once he realized that Pippin felt more than a simple attraction. He had tried to distract himself in a variety of ways. He’d found an old, unused lute in the music room and tried to learn it, but Pervinca had dashed his hopes by claiming the instrument belonged to her and, out of spite more than anything, she took up the study of it with a sudden passion. He’d then turned his attention to books, and asked Pimpernel to help him find an engrossing course of study for himself, but the books only served to remind him of how much Merry liked to read and study, so they were entirely counterproductive. His last resort was to take extra time to go through the accounts with his father and learn the management of the estate, an enterprise to which he’d taken with such gusto that Paladin had been suspicious of him and had gone so far as to ask, repeatedly, what Pippin had done wrong.

Then, his cousins had come to stay for Yule and Pippin had tried to start a flirtation with a descendent of Isembold, but it had been forced, and Pippin discontinued the effort, realizing that he was only using the lad as a poorer stand-in for Merry. Then, Merry himself had arrived and Pippin had found himself smitten anew.

Nothing he did mattered. He could not stop himself from wanting things to be different, from hoping that they were different, no matter how much evidence accumulated to the contrary. Nothing could stop him from feeling that Merry was quite the best-suited hobbit for him in the world. No distraction could stop his mind wandering again and again through foolish scenarios, all of which ended with Merry somehow shirtless and compliant to his desires.

He felt, from across the room, as though someone were looking at him and turned to see Everard glaring at him shrewdly. He’d stopped plucking the fiddle and instead gave Pippin a less than warm smile before he stood up and stretched with a loud groan.

Merry looked up from his reading and Everard gave him a much warmer smile than the one he’d given Pippin before he walked over to Merry’s reading table, “I’m dreadfully bored, Merry.”

“I’m sorry,” Merry said, “Why don’t you try a book?”

Everard made a face that turned his pinchy features even pinchier, “Oh, but I’m tired of reading. This is a very large house, I don’t believe that I’ve yet seen all of it.”

Merry shrugged, “Probably not.”

“Would you like to show me some more?” Everard asked pointedly.

Merry shot a glance at Pippin, who did his best to keep his expression blank, “I’m sort of in the middle of something,” Merry smiled a trifle mischievously, “But Pippin probably knows Brandy Hall as well as anyone. Maybe he could take you on a tour?”

Pippin snorted, “No, certainly not,” he said as though he’d been asked to drink vinegar.

Merry laughed and Everard seethed, “I see,” he said coolly before he walked out of the room. Merry watched him go, seeming both relieved and regretful.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Merry said quietly.

“What did you do?” Pippin asked, “I was the one who made it sound like I’d rather have a toe pulled off than walk around the house with him.”

Merry smiled in spite of himself, “Yes, but I knew what you’d say. It’s just that he’s been hanging about like he’s got nothing better to do than pluck at a fiddle all day within my hearing. I mean, honestly, he’s got no rational occupation at all, and I’m not here to act as his sole source of amusement.”

Delighted as he was to hear unsolicited criticism of Everard from Merry, Pippin felt that such a charge could easily be laid at his own door. He shrugged nonchalantly, “Well, in his defense, it is dull to be shut up inside for nearly a week straight.”

Merry looked at him in surprise, “You’re defending Everard now?”

“I mean, not, you know, strongly,” thinking again of the way Everard had sneered at him, “But, well, you have your books, Merry, and sometimes I think you’d be quite happy to forget any of the rest of us are here and just read all day. That’s fine, of course, for you, but…”

“So, you’re bored too, then?” Merry asked, cutting to the point.

“Perhaps a little,” Pippin confessed.

Merry marked the pages in his books and snapped them shut, “Alright, what do you want to do?”

“But, Merry, you were reading,” Pippin said, “I don’t want you to think that I…”

Merry hushed him, “Oh stop it, it really doesn’t do to read all day. Besides, my eyes were getting a bit tired," he said, and though Pippin suspected he was lying, he couldn’t stand another minute of sitting quietly and rewriting history in his imagination, so, he let Merry think that he believed him.

"You know," Merry said after a moment, "I think that Mum had a box of cherries delivered earlier. We could make a cherry tart for dessert tonight. How about we knock it up and maybe take some cherries as payment? What do you think?”

Pippin would have agreed to anything that would guarantee dessert as well as provide him with something to do, and so, together, they walked down to the kitchens. A lovely box of cherries was indeed waiting for them on the counter, the red fruit still wet from the rain. Pippin grabbed one and popped it into his mouth before reaching in for a handful.

“Alright, not all of them, now,” Merry scolded, “There do have to be enough for a tart, you know.”

“There’s a whole crate, Merry!” Pippin protested, “I could scarcely eat so many that there wouldn’t be enough for a tart. I’d die.”

Merry pulled a cutting board out along with a small knife, “Just the same, kindly mind how many you eat while I work, alright?”

Merry pulled the stem from a cherry before he slid the knife across its circumference. He pulled the two halves apart and popped out the pit with a flick of his knife before he moved on to the next one. Pippin watched him, strangely proud of Merry’s confidence in the kitchen. At Tooksborough, they had cooks who made nearly all of their meals, but the Brandybucks cooked for themselves as often as not, being as there were only the three of them most of the time. After a moment, Pippin said, "Aren't I meant to help?"

“Yes, you are, but I knew I was being impractical in suggesting it.”

Pippin snorted, “I can help. Just tell me what to do.”

The process was fairly simple and Pippin picked it up quickly once Merry had demonstrated how to properly hold the knife. In the end, it was decided that he would concentrate on the fruit and Merry would get to work on the dough.

As Merry mixed flour, butter, and sugar with his hands, he also narrated occasionally what he was doing, theoretically so that Pippin might learn something, but Pippin repeatedly interrupted him with such ridiculous questions that he soon gave up any pretense at being educational and instead made absurd statements for Pippin’s amusement. Merry gathered the dough into a ball before he rolled it out and set it in the tart pan. He then wrapped it with cheesecloth and took it into the cold pantry and then helped Pippin pit the remaining cherries. When they were done, Merry had him help build a fire in the oven, taking logs as Pippin handed them over, and stoking the flames to life until they burned out and only coals remained.

“And now we put the tart in,” Merry said, observing the neat little bundle of pastry and cherries as he brushed the latticed crust with egg white.

“It looks good,” Pippin said.

“It does, but it will look even better cooked,” Merry promised.

The heat from the oven had made the room a little over warm and Pippin wiped his brow with his sleeve, “Right, I suppose it’s time to clean up,” he said. He went to the box of cherries and took another handful, “And these are just spares, right?” he asked, turning to Merry with a grin.

Merry shook his head at him, as though amused by Pippin’s lack of control, “If you like,” he said, “but there’s enough there for preserves, probably jam too.”

“Let’s get back to work, then,” Pippin said sarcastically.

“Maybe we’ll save something for tomorrow,” Merry said, taking his own handful of cherries and leaning back against the counter. He looked out of the kitchen window, “But then, maybe we won’t have to. It looks like the rain is clearing,” he said with a nod of his head.

Pippin looked out and saw the pink sky and the unmistakable glow of the sun. Thick droplets of water clung to the glass, but rain was no longer falling.

“Let’s go outside, Merry,” he said, “it’s hot in here. If it isn’t raining any more…”

“You can splash in some mud puddles,” Merry teased.

Pippin rolled his eyes, “I’m not a wee lad any more, Merry.”

“Near enough,” Merry said. “We can’t go too far with the tart in the oven, but we have a little time. Let’s go.”

Just outside the door of the kitchen was a giant old oak tree that spread its arms wide over Brandy Hall. In the autumn, it dropped acorns prodigiously and hazardously, and Pippin recalled to Merry one of their acorn wars from when they were both much younger, the particular instance he described involved Merry’s mother coming outside and getting pelted in the side with an acorn. Her face had darkened, and they had assumed that they were in for a doom the likes of which only old Bilbo had ever seen, when Smaug had descended over Laketown, but, instead, Aunt Esme merely picked up the offending acorn and joined in the fray. Merry laughed at the recollection.

Pippin stood near the trunk of the tree and felt the cool breeze across his skin. The wind stirred a little shower of rain out of the leaves and Pippin squealed with laughter as several cold droplets landed in his hair. He inhaled the softly scented air, the cool of it felt excellent compared to the heat of the kitchen. He looked up at the canopy of leaves and smiled.

When he looked back down at Merry, his cousin was looking at him with an odd, intent expression.

“Are you alright, Merry?” Pippin asked, “Have I got something on my face?”

Merry shook his head, “No, no, you’re fine. I was just thinking about something I read earlier and it distracted me for a second.” He looked back at the house, “You know, I should probably go and find Everard. He’s probably still annoyed with me.”

“Oh,” Pippin said, having rather forgotten that Everard was there at all. He furrowed his brow, “Merry,” he said, “I…” he began, not sure of what exactly he wanted to say. He wanted to know if Merry had changed his mind, if perhaps he had fallen in love with Everard after all. He wanted to tell him that if he wasn't in love with Everard, that he could try falling in love with him instead, since Pippin had thought of little else since that night in the clearing when he first realized that it was even a possibility. He wanted to say that Merry could just give in and kiss him already if he really wanted to because Pippin couldn't find anyone his own age when all he wanted was Merry anyway. He wanted to say that miserable rainy days were not nearly so miserable when Merry was with him. But he chided himself for his foolishness and lost his nerve, “How long does the tart need in the oven?”

“Just until the crust browns up,” Merry said.

“Right,” Pippin said, “I suppose I ought to go watch it, then.”

Merry shook his head, “No, you’ve got time. Stay outside for a bit, if you like. I’ll come down to check on it once I’ve found Everard.”

 

 

Everard left the next morning, the pretense of cheer he kept up for Merry’s parents quickly evaporating as Merry bade him farewell. Pippin didn’t precisely consider it spying, since he was only sitting in the library, which just happened to have its best chair located next to a window that hung over the side of the house where Everard was saddling his pony. If he had the window open, it was only because it was a trifle stuffy, since the windows had been kept closed during the rainy days of the previous week, so really it was perfectly reasonable to open it a crack. And if he could hear little snatches of conversation, he wasn’t trying to overhear it, just simply not trying to avoid it either.

He had a book of maps spread out in his lap. He was looking at an ancient reckoning of the Shire that Merry had said showed the little settlement that their shed might have once been a part of, and so, while his attention wasn’t exactly occupied by his reading material, he did at least have a book open and he was looking at it.

“I don’t know why you asked me,” Everard said quietly, and then there was a further murmur of his speech before Pippin heard him say, “…once? What’s the point?”

Merry made an answer, his lower, more raspy voice more difficult to overhear clearly, but Pippin did hear him apologize and then say, “It’s not that…” and then more that he couldn’t understand. He wanted to lean his head out of the window for all of the good it would do him, but he reminded himself that he was not spying and so remained in his chair.

“I suggest you sort it out, then,” Everard said snappishly.

“You’re actually jealous?” Pippin heard Merry ask incredulously and there was a snort of derisive laughter that belonged to Everard. He made some comment that sounded very ill-natured from his tone of voice and then Merry said, “Well, you’re being ridiculous.”

“No, I’m not. I have eyes, Merry. I’m not stupid. Even if you refuse…” and then Everard lowered his voice again. Pippin leaned a little closer to the window trying to catch the last snatch of conversation when his uncle Saradoc startled him by entering the room.

Pippin jumped in his chair, the book of maps nearly sent tumbling onto the floor. For his part, Saradoc looked nearly as surprised to see Pippin as Pippin was to see him. He had his hand to his chest and looked around the library, seemingly bewildered. “Whatever are you doing here, boy?” he asked, “Are you not going to say goodbye to your cousin?”

“Oh,” Pippin said, “I already did. He’s Merry’s friend, really.”

Saradoc raised his eyebrows, “Yes, well. He’s a little… er… trying, isn’t he?”

Knowing that this was as close to a condemnation as Uncle Saradoc ever got, Pippin felt unsure of how to react. “He’s not bad, in small doses,” Pippin said and Saradoc chuckled.

“Just so.” Saradoc looked at the slightly open window behind Pippin, through which the sound of a pony’s departing hooves was now plainly heard. Pippin felt his face go red and Saradoc said, “Close the window, lad. I’m a bit chill.”

Pippin did as he was asked as his uncle hunted the bookshelves, eventually taking down a volume of poetry, “There now, this will bear me out,” he said to Pippin, “I was only just saying to your aunt that I’m sure the third line of ‘Weep Not Fair Lady’ is _moon and stars will see you shine_ and she thinks it's _moon and stars will shine all day_ , which is preposterous...” Saradoc said, rocking onto his heels, “Well. Now the weather has cleared, you two are adventure bound again, I’m sure, but you boys will take care to be back for dinner, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, Uncle,” Pippin said innocently, settling himself in a different chair at the other end of the room from where he had been.

“Good. You’re a good lad, Pippin.” Saradoc said with a smile, “I’ll see you later.” He walked out of the room just as Merry was walking into it and gave his son a quick pat on the shoulder before continuing on.

Merry looked after him and then at Pippin, “What are you doing in here?”

“Oh,” Pippin said, realizing that he’d left the book of maps on the other chair, “I was just looking for you and your father was in here and we had a bit of a chat, is all,” Merry raised his eyebrows at this, but Pippin didn’t give him time to comment, “Is Everard gone, then?”

Pippin thought Merry’s look darkened slightly, “Yes, he’s gone,” he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He seemed to debate something with himself before he said, “It’s nice out, fancy a walk?”

Pippin smiled and nodded and followed Merry out of the door. Merry was somewhat quiet as they continued along, looking out at the fields and hills far more than he usually did. In the end, through no direct intention, they made their way to Merry’s clearing by the river where the boat was kept. The ground was still muddy from the rain, so Pippin sat atop a large rock at the edge of the water while Merry leaned back against a tree and stared at the stream.

“Are you alright, Merry?” Pippin asked.

“Yes, fine,” he answered. He fell silent and then pushed off from the tree and went down to the water’s edge. “Do you remember when you were little and we used to come down here so you could fish out pieces of malachite?”

Pippin snorted, “Yes, of course I remember. I still have a fair bit of it sitting at home you know, on my dresser.”

Merry smiled at him and then looked back down at the water. There was an eddy as though of a fish’s tailfin coming near the surface and then a smooth, dark shape dove lower into the water. “You don’t think…” Merry began but stopped. He looked across the river at the other bank, seemingly at nothing, “We’re friends, aren’t we, Pip?”

If Merry hadn’t been so serious, Pippin would have laughed aloud at the hesitation in his tone, “Of course, Merry. That is probably the stupidest question I’ve ever heard anyone ask, and I’m including myself.”

Merry gave a little huff of amusement. He fingered the hem of his weskit and then turned to look at Pippin with some of the same intensity Pippin had seen in his eyes the day before, “I’d just never want to lose that,” Merry said.

“No, of course not, Merry,” Pippin said, confusion plainly written on his face, “Whyever should we not be friends?” to Pippin, it was like Merry had suddenly suggested that the sun might stop shining, or the seasons might cease to turn.

Merry shook his head and looked at the water again, “Things change. Sometimes, people come to feel differently. I don’t know.”

Pippin stood up from where he was sitting and walked to Merry, thinking to comfort him in whatever ill mood had taken him, but as Merry watched him approach, Pippin felt his concern replaced by something else. “Merry,” he said softly, “Does this mean that you fancy me now?”

Merry looked up at the heavens and threw his hands away from his sides, “What?” he asked the sky, “What did I do to deserve this?” he directed his gaze back at Pippin, any trace of tenderness gone, “Why would you ask such a question now, of all times?”

“Well, I don’t know. You were looking at me so oddly, and you were rattling on about minds changing and things, it’s not a completely unreasonable conclusion.”

“Pippin! Can’t you see I’m having a crisis of conscience?”

“If it’s to do with me, Merry, you needn’t worry. I’m much more mature than I used to be, due to natural aging, so I shouldn’t lose my head in the least if you decided that you wanted to, you know, kiss me… or,” he paused delicately to indicate that he was well aware that there were other things to be done beyond just kissing, “I’d…”

“No, no, no, no,” Merry chanted, “This, this is what I was afraid of. That you would get ideas…“

“Well, I’m only saying that I’m not likely to go to pieces over one kiss,” Pippin interrupted.

“And here we are again,” Merry said rubbing his face with his hand. “Have you ever considered, Pippin, that it might not…” he trailed off in irritation, took a breath and said, “What if you don’t like it, if I kiss you?”

Pippin laughed, “Why wouldn’t I like it? Do you not practice proper oral hygiene?”

Merry smirked in spite of himself, “No, that’s not what I mean.”

“So, you haven’t got terrible breath?” Pippin asked, trying to win more of a smile from his cousin, “Maybe you’re suggesting that you’re not even good at kissing, is that it?”

“You’ll never find out,” Merry said. “You are too young, you clearly aren’t ready…”

“Ready for what?” Pippin asked, suddenly exasperated and wondering what tectonic shift in reality he could possibly be unprepared for if Merry were to kiss him, “You can’t exactly get me with child by kissing me, Merry! Nor even if you did… everything else there is to do to me! I don’t understand…”

“Exactly!” Merry shouted, “You don’t understand! What do you think this is, Pippin? What do you think I feel whenever I look at you? What? Do you suppose that I would be happy to find out that you’ve gotten tired of me, or that you want to stop being friends because I’ve ruined everything because I couldn’t…” he stopped abruptly, suddenly seeming to realize that he was yelling. He shook his head.

“Merry,” Pippin pleaded, “why are you so upset? It doesn’t have to be everything, all at once. I’m not expecting you to…” he didn’t know what he wanted to say. Fall in love with him? It seemed natural, of course, that Merry would fall in love with him, since Pippin was already in love on his end. But if he didn’t, if he just kissed Pippin and dallied with him as he’d done with Everard, how would Pippin feel then? He looked at Merry and Merry was staring back at him. A flash of understanding passed between them. At last, Pippin felt he could understand at least a little of his cousin's hesitation.

“Nothing has to change,” Pippin said at length, “Kiss me, or don’t, nothing has to change.”

Merry nodded and began to walk away from the river bank but Pippin called his name, and Merry turned, “I won’t stop wanting you to, though.”

 

 

 

The aisles of the Free Fair were still crowded with hobbits as the sun began to go down. The merchant tents were closing up, but the food vendors and games remained open, and there was music and dancing in the large party field. Already, Pippin had seen each of his three sisters, his parents, a large assortment of his cousins, plus Folco, Fatty, Frodo, Tosto, and Berilac as he meandered back up into the fair proper, away from the dancers, but for the life of him, he could not find Merry.

They had become separated during the afternoon when Merry had seen Everard and gone to talk to him. At first, Pippin thought that he’d meant to do more than converse, but from the way they greeted one another and the distance between them as they walked off, Pippin doubted very much that any such thing could have taken place.

As they’d walked out of Pippin’s sight, Pervinca had come upon him and scolded him for being ‘an underhanded little weasel’ and he’d quite forgotten what he’d done to deserve such a rebuke, until she’d reminded him that he’d put a rotten old egg in the belly of her lute before he left. Apparently, it had stunk up her entire room so badly before she could discover it that she had yet to be able to close her windows without the stench returning, in spite of the fact that she’d laundered every linen in the room seven times. Pippin, of course, had laughed, which had only enraged her further, and then he’d taken the only sensible course of action and run from her as soon as she’d turned her back. She’d chased him, shouting after him, until he’d managed to lose her in the crowd.

Unfortunately, his encounter with his sister meant that he wasn’t in the place that Merry might have expected him to be if he came looking for him. He’d seen Everard walk past him only a half-hour after Merry had gone to speak with him, but he was alone. Since then, Pippin must have spoken to a dozen different hobbits who had only ‘just seen’ Merry a moment ago, for all the good that did him.

He was nearly ready to give up his search entirely and simply start the long walk back to Brandy Hall when he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see Merry looking down at him with a grin. “Your sister hates you, by the by,” he said by way of greeting.

Pippin laughed, “So, you’ve seen Pervinca, then?”

“Seen and heard for an hour at least. She was even more irritated that you’d run off on her. I’m supposed to frog march you to her as soon as I can catch hold of you, to what end, though, I’m not sure.”

“So she can kill me, obviously,” Pippin said somberly.

Merry nodded, “Yes, probably so. Well, perhaps then I won’t comply, and we can be fugitives from her together.”

“Excellent,” Pippin replied. He took Merry to a stand selling some lovely soft raspberry pastries and wheedled Merry into buying them some. By mutual agreement, they skipped the dancing since Pervinca was almost certainly patrolling the area and decided to explore the beer tent, where the bulk of the population disinclined to dance had gathered to sample over forty of the best beers of the Shire. Finally eighteen, Pippin was allowed to get his own drinks, though it felt strange to just walk up and ask as opposed to sneaking about, pilfering.

Together, he and Merry tried just about every ale that was available before they tipsily exited the tent and made their way up a grassy hillside that overlooked the dancing. Pippin leaned back on the grass and closed his eyes, feeling the world spinning pleasantly beneath him, the sound of the band and lively conversation trickled up from below just enough to make him feel like he was still a part of the festivities. There were a hundred thousand stars waiting for him when he opened his eyes and he smiled up at them. After a moment, Merry leaned back as well and they both looked up at the shimmering sky together.

“What did you say to Everard?” Pippin asked eventually.

Merry didn’t answer him and Pippin wondered if he’d perhaps fallen asleep. He turned to look at him, but Merry was awake, just examining the stars. “It’s not important, Pip,” he fell quiet again and a silence stretched during which a gale of raucous laughter erupted from the dancers below, then Merry added, “Whatever it was is done.”

Pippin smiled and looked back up at the sky. “Merry,” he said after another moment. Merry looked at him, “Do you think you could kiss me now?”

Merry shook his head with a laugh, “You are the least subtle…”

“Well, I don’t want you to get confused,” Pippin said with a responding giggle. He rolled onto his stomach so that he was looking down at Merry, the motion renewing his vertiginous sense that the world was spinning under him like he was lying in a boat left adrift in a rapidly flowing stream. He blinked his eyes a little to clear his head.

“You’re drunk,” Merry said, “You should hardly have your first kiss drunk.”

"Plenty of people, I'm sure, are drunk for their first kiss."

Merry made a hum of agreement, "Yes, but you may benefit from my experience. You'd be better off sober, Pip."

"You were drunk? For your first kiss then?"

Merry sighed, "Yes."

Pippin waited for a few heartbeats, "Who was it?"

Merry snorted, "I'm not telling you that."

"Why?"

"Because it's not your business. Anyway, we were both drunk and I think we both agreed that it was a mistake after it happened, and it never happened again, so it hardly matters."

Pippin waited again, listening to the tune the band was playing down below. He looked at Merry, who was looking up at the stars, and then plucked a piece of grass, "So it was bad?" he asked.

Merry laughed, "Honestly, Pippin," he shook his head a little, "I suppose it was bad, if you must know. Anyway, being drunk didn't help anything."

“But I’m not drunk,” Pippin said defensively, but at seeing the look of complete incredulity upon Merry’s face he added, “At least, not that drunk.”

“Still,” Merry said. He folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes, “Forget it.”

Pippin flopped back on the ground with an irritated sigh.

 

 

Merry dashed down the lane and grabbed Pippin by the arm, saying, “Go, go, go…” in a loud whisper as the sounds of Farmer Maggot’s shouts grew closer. Pippin turned and ran with his cousin back down to where the boat waited for them and leapt in without breaking his stride. Water splashed up the sides in a little gout as Merry jumped in and seized the oars, rowing them away with powerful strokes. Farmer Maggot’s calls faded away and Pippin whooped with suppressed laughter.

“Did you get any?” he asked as he recovered his breath.

Merry nodded, “Just a couple. It was ill luck, that’s for sure, that he’d be out in that field at this time of day,” he removed six slightly bruised strawberries from his pocket and handed three over to Pippin, allowing the current to bear them back toward Brandy Hall. “The last of the season,” he added reverently.

Pippin took a bite and closed his eyes with pleasure. The strawberries at the end of the season were always the sweetest, and these were no exception. He licked his lips and smiled at Merry, noticing how the other hobbit was looking at him. Pippin tilted his head in an imitation of something he’d seen Merry do when he wished to strike at particularly fetching posture and looked up at his cousin mischievously.

“No,” Merry said preemptively.

“I haven’t even asked for anything, Merry.”

Merry snorted, “You don’t need to say it to ask.”

Pippin tossed his hair and slowly ate his second strawberry while Merry watched him as though unable to look away. He let the lids of his eyes lower slightly as he watched Merry watching him and felt a tingle race across his skin.

“Pip…”

“What?” Pippin asked innocently.

“No. Now stop,” Merry said firmly. He looked away, down into the water, and rowed determinedly.

Pippin folded his arms across his chest.

 

 

“And it’ll all still be here when we get back?” Aunt Esme asked Merry severely as Uncle Saradoc finished loading the cart.

“Yes, Mum,” Merry said in exasperation.

“In one piece?” she added with her eyebrows raised.

“Well, that’s asking a little much,” Merry replied with a smirk.

Aunt Esme smiled, her stern air lifting immediately. She kissed Merry on his brow and then placed a kiss on Pippin’s forehead, tugging a little to straighten Pippin’s weskit. “It goes without saying, my loves, that if anything does happen to the house while we’re gone, we won’t leave you alone again until you’re both at least forty-five.”

“All right, Esme?” Uncle Saradoc said and his wife waved him off.

“Yes, love. I’m just putting the fear of god into these two rapscallions since you’re incapable of being more menacing than a complacent spaniel.”

Uncle Saradoc scoffed at the criticism, “It doesn’t matter anyway, they’re beyond helping now, the devils,” he embraced each of them in turn and then took his wife’s arm and helped her into the cart. They called final farewells as they drove away. Merry and Pippin watched their cart until it was out of sight.

“Want to burn the house down?” Merry asked him as they turned to go inside and Pippin laughed.

They walked through the lower hall, past the cellar rooms and back up the stairs into the main hall. The house wasn’t any quieter than it normally was, nor was there any real, discernable difference between when Merry’s parents were there or not, but still, it felt strange to know that they were the only two people there.

“So,” Pippin said, twitching an eyebrow as he leaned against the wall.

Merry looked at him askance, “Surely not already.”

Pippin stood up straight and stamped his foot, “Merry!”

Merry jumped back and then laughed, “Is this a new strategy, then? Yelling at me?”

Pippin rolled his eyes in exasperation, “Well, nothing else is working!”

“This won’t either,” Merry said, “Forget it, alright?” he went into the library and left Pippin standing in the hall alone.

Pippin sighed.

 

 

As the summer days began to shorten and autumn drew near once more, Pippin was getting desperate. He pestered Merry nearly every time they found themselves alone and he could see that Merry was beginning to crack. The last time, he'd been so nearly on the edge of breaking Merry's resolve, that he was sure that just five minutes more would have done the trick, but that blasted shepherd had come by, driving his sheep up the lane and Pippin had been obliged to leave off. Merry had gone so far as to plead for a week off from Pippin's begging as soon as the shepherd was out of earshot, saying that it was driving him mad, and if that wasn't a good sign, Pippin didn't know what was.

Still, he'd refrained from saying anything as they walked from the Hall that morning with rods and tackle in hand and headed to Merry's stream to fish.

Pippin’s back rested against the solid warmth of an elm tree. He adjusted his fishing line with his fingers, its trail the lone disturbance in the stream’s lazily moving surface. The lure twitched, but no fish was enticed. It had been an unproductive day; Merry had given up hours ago. He was reading a book, some ways distant, occasionally muttering strange words to himself that Pippin recognized, from the sound at least, as elvish, though he hadn’t a clue what they meant.

As morning had given way to noon, clouds had moved in, gathering to shroud the sun and lending the water a steel colored sheen. A drop fell and then a second. Merry looked up from his book and shut it.

“I think it’s time to go back to the house, Pip.”

Pippin agreed and began gathering up the fishing tackle as well as the plates from their picnic. He placed them together in the basket they’d brought down. Merry dumped the worms that they hadn’t used back into the dirt and they squirmed away. He took his book and shut it in the basket with the rest of their things before taking up the rods.

They picked their way along the path as a distant rumble of thunder sounded and the rain picked up slightly. The trees shielded them from the worst of it, but the rocks underfoot were slowly dampening, and the roots were becoming slick. They traveled as carefully as they could while still maintaining a degree of haste. As they came in sight of the field, Pippin realized that the turn in the weather had at least one beneficial effect: he was quite sure they were alone. He had taken up his favorite topic of the past month as they’d left the river bank and was pleased to see that they could continue the discussion for as long as he liked, or at least until they made it back to the Hall.

"But why not, Merry?" he asked. He adjusted his grip on the basket of fishing tackle he carried. "Surely, you'd had your first kiss by the time you were my age."

He couldn't see Merry's eyeroll, but he heard it in his voice, "Yes," he said, "But I kissed someone,” he paused and put special emphasis on his next words, “my own age."

"But you said it was bad," Pippin protested.

"When did I say that?" Merry asked.

"This summer, at the Free Fair. I don't know how you could have forgotten."

Merry snorted and looked back over his shoulder at him. He shifted the rods he carried slightly, "Well, I think it's supposed to be bad the first time. At least a little."

"But, Merry," Pippin began sensibly, "Wasn't it you who taught me to sit a pony so that I wouldn't fall off? And you who showed me the right way to get into a boat so I wouldn't tip it? And then you showed me how to smoke a pipe, and how to know when I'd had enough to drink so that my father wouldn't be able to tell..."

"Yes, and I regret all of it," Merry said wearily.

Pippin ignored him, "So why won't you spare me the indignity of a bad first kiss?"

"Because those things are not kissing. Those things are appropriate. Kissing you," Merry stopped and turned, "is wrong."

Pippin huffed, “How is it wrong? It wasn’t wrong when you were kissing stupid Everard.”

“Plenty of people would disagree with you on that one, Pip. And, anyway, it’s different with you.”

“Why?” he asked, struggling slightly with the weight of the basket now that the handle had gotten wet and slippery.

Merry was about to say something, but then checked himself. He sighed, "Couldn't you just find someone appropriate for yourself instead of pestering me all of the time?" Merry reached over and took the basket from him.

"I just don't see why you're not appropriate. You're fit, you're smart, you're polite," Pippin added, gesturing at the basket, "you'd not be slobbery."

Merry laughed at that, "You can't know how much I'd slobber you."

"You wouldn't."

"I might, just to put you off."

Pippin shook his head, "No, you'd kiss me properly. Like you meant it."

Merry was silent in irritation again and his face was flushed. He looked away from Pippin, "I won't kiss you at all, Pippin,” he began walking again, with greater haste, “I beg you, please just stop asking."

"Am I not handsome enough?" Pippin asked, changing tactics. He trotted a little to catch up to his cousin.

Merry shook his head, "You know perfectly well..." he began, but stopped himself. He pursed his lips, "Your handsomeness has nothing to do with it."

"Because you do fancy me?"

"It doesn't matter if I fancy you..."

"But you do," Pippin stated.

"...I absolutely will not..."

"But why not, Merry?"

Merry threw his hands up in the air sending both the basket and the rods clattering to the ground, "We've just been discussing why not for the past half-hour, Pippin! And more besides, we must have had this same conversation a hundred times. This week alone," He bent to scoop them up again, muttering in annoyance.

"Well, you just don’t make any sense over it. You just say you won’t and when I ask you why you say that I’m too young even though you admit that you’d had your first kiss by now and I don’t see any reason at all why you couldn’t just kiss me instead of driving me mad with your insensible arguments. Furthermore, you…" Pippin began but stopped.

Merry was looking at him with a greater quantity of irritation than Pippin had ever seen. He stood and left the rods where they lay on the ground. He walked toward Pippin with purpose, placed his hands on Pippin’s shoulders and bore him backwards, against the rough bark of an oak tree.

Merry was nearly panting with agitation as his hands continued to rest on either side of Pippin's neck. Pippin was keenly aware of how close Merry was standing to him, the sound of the rain above them was curiously sharp; he swallowed thickly and licked his lips. Merry's eyes darkened as his glance flicked to Pippin's retreating tongue. He shook his head and then swallowed, "To hell with it." Pippin inhaled sharply and Merry pressed his lips against his, his hand traveled upward to cup the back of Pippin's head. Pippin leaned into the kiss, too shocked at first to feel anything and then suddenly flooded with wave upon wave of chills as Merry devoured him.

Pippin pulled Merry tight against him, feeling the smooth lines of Merry's body melt against his own. He ran one hand up the taut muscle of Merry's back and tangled the other in his hair, wanting more, and Merry pulled away slightly, breaking the kiss. He looked into Pippin's eyes as though he were looking at the whole world in one place. He traced Pippin's face with his hands, and he kissed Pippin a second time, slower, deeper, and more gently. He pulled all of Pippin's breath out of him and filled him with a rush of lightheaded joy.

He pulled away again, "Happy?" he asked huskily. He leaned away from Pippin, but stood close, their forms just mere inches apart.

Pippin was more than happy, he was ecstatic, but the power of speech was beyond him. The heat of Merry's body was almost palpable, the temptation of him standing so close was tantalizing. Rain pattered above them in the leaves and a droplet fell at the corner of Merry’s mouth. Pippin leaned forward and kissed it away, before capturing Merry’s mouth for himself, feeling his cousin's lips part for him. It was impossible, like flying, and yet easy, like breathing air, and Pippin knew that whatever Merry had feared, he would never have enough of him. He ran his hands down Merry's back, down to his hips and tried to pull him close again, but Merry broke away. "That's enough, Pip."

They did nothing but breathe together for a moment, before Merry began smiling wickedly. Thinking that he was going to kiss him again, Pippin inclined his head, but instead Merry licked his face.

"Agh, Merry, what are you doing?" Pippin shouted, trying to pull away.

Merry pulled him into his arms and held him tight, "Slobbering you. Serves you right," he licked messily across Pippin's cheek and then his nose, stopping to pay special attention to his eyes. Pippin protested and struggled against him, weak from laughing. "There," he said, once he was satisfied.

Merry released him and Pippin sputtered indignantly and wiped his face with his sleeve. "Truly, you're the worst of hobbits, Meriadoc Brandybuck."

Merry pantomimed tipping a cap at Pippin. He picked up the basket of tackle and continued walking toward the Hall, "Grab the rods if you would, Pip. Thanks."

Pippin scooped up the rods and jogged up to Merry, "So, when do you suppose you'll kiss me again?" he asked. A loud peal of thunder sounded and the heavens began to pour down rain.


End file.
